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Unlimited time off? No thanks, some workers say

»www.bostonglobe.com/business/201···ory.html

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Most people dream of being able to take as much vacation as they want. But at a growing number of companies, especially young technology firms, employees are getting unlimited time off.

And incredibly, they’re not taking advantage of it.

Many of these workers are taking the same — or even less — vacation time than when they had a fixed number of days each year. Workers have so embraced the 24/7 work culture that one California software firm pays its employees extra if they agree to take an uninterrupted week off.

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In this hyper-connected world, with smartphones and tablets tethering workers to the office on nights and weekends, the line between work and play has become so blurred that keeping tabs on their hours is almost irrelevant.

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I'm not sure if I would drop by for cake at my retirement party or not.

Salaried employees probably fear if they take too much time off they will be replaced by the time they get back. If they are not there doing the work someone else is and that person keeps the job or gets promoted.
I think it is more a backhanded threat than anything else.
Give someone paid holiday a set vacation system determined say by number of years and sick time with doctors excuse if over a certain amount then people may feel freer to use it up. Hey I get Christmas off.
If not set time off and up to you some especially younger people may tend to compete on who can work the longest to get ahead. I haven't taken a day in years remember when so and so took a sick day lazy ass then had the nerve to take off Christmas day. I didnt give me the promotion.

I think the key point missing here is that while a lot of companies have started the "unlimited vacation" plan, the employees who are offered that are not the type that just punch a clock. They are people who are expected to complete tasks on schedule. So sure, you can take all the time off you like, but we still expect X amount of work to be complete by date Y, or we will move you to the permanent "un-paid time off" employment plan.
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I actually work at a company that has this policy. It only works depending on what type of job function you have to perform.

I'm an I.T. Project Manager. For salaried I.T. professionals, you have a task to complete. I need to make sure my projects are implemented on time and under budget. If that means I work until 1:00 a.m. on a deployment weekend, or answer e-mails from my BlackBerry during dinner, than so be it. I'm held accountable for the performance of my project.

That also means I can leave the office three hours early on a Friday (as I did today), just as long as there is no impact. I can have unlimited time off, but that doesn't excuse me from making sure that again, my project is on time and under budget.

Unlimited time off would never fly in a service industry, or a call center, or some other work function that depends on "time spent on site" vs. performance against a set goal.

You said: "my wife, when she takes time off, tends to respond to e-mails and keep up with things at the office. While she is at home. So should that count as her working, or taking time off from work?"

For me, if that meant keeping my projects moving along successfully, that is what I will do in exchange for the flat salary and flexible hours.

All that said, there are two weeks per year (one in July for a beach vacation, and one in November where I go on a cruise) that my boss understands that I completely check out. Phone off. You can't contact me for seven days. No exceptions. However, I also plan my absence months in advance so there is adequate coverage and my boss knows any and all issues that may arise --- and how to solve them.

At least in my profession, it is a two way street. I rather like it.

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When judgment day comes, I'm confident I will end up in a place that's quite comfortable, very well deserved, and truly reflects how I strive to live my life. It's amusing certain groups feel the need to tell me their place will be better than mine.

It makes sense that it would apply to only certain level of jobs.
Like you mentioned, in service, or even on a factory floor where you need a certain percentage of people per day to meet production demands, it wouldn't work that well or at all.

But IT, what my wife does, or a job where people can work at work or at home, then it sorta makes sense.
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Is a person a failure for doing nothing? Or is he a failure for trying, and not succeeding at what he is attempting to do? What did you fail at today?.

The company I work for has a Paid Time Off (PTO) pool that vacation, sick time, etc. come out of. We have flex hours and are held to a 40-hour work week. Employees arrive to start the day between 7:30 and 11am. Some leave earlier while others stay into the early evening.

We are not expected, in fact it's actively discouraged, to work more than the 40 hours, but we need to get that amount in over 5 days. (No 4-10s and a day off.) If we work a little extra one day, we can leave early the next. As long as we're here 5 days a week for most of the day, an hour or two fluctuation is fine. This way stuff like doctor's appointments, the occasional long lunch, etc. doesn't cost PTO time.

We are also encouraged to take as much time off as we need to keep a good work / life balance. If the amount of PTO taken exceeds our pool we can go negative without penalty. If we get too far into the negative, we're simply asked to purchase back some time. If I want to take a month off to contemplate my navel, the company is behind me, and I'll have a job when I return. They're just not going to pay me to do it beyond the standard amount of PTO that everyone gets.

We have an odd system where I work. We do have time off and sick time, but depending on what is going on and for how long I am out a time slip does not get submitted. We are allowed to carry over 40 hours a year, currently this year I'll probably have to take 2 to get down to that level(on top of the planned vacation I already have). Much of the flexibility is the extra hours I end up putting in when needed, hell if my boss is gone for a week, minimum 50 hours but closer to 60 by the time things are done. Not fun.. so he doesn't say anything when time slip isn't turned in. Much like others here sacrifices have been made and will continue to be made to get the job done, luckily with my hobby in motorsports when I'm at the track I get left alone.

I first saw this back in 1988. A friend of mine just graduated with his fancy Harvard MBA and took a finance job in NYC. On his first day he asked about vacation and sick time (he didn't want to ask during the interviews) and was told "whatever you're comfortable with." I don't think he took a day off the first two years.

There are two extreme lines of thought here.

You have the people who don't take vacation at all They either love their work that much or are workaholics. Then you have the people who would abuse the system. They would take a ton of time off because they can. There really isn't much discussion of the people who would take 3-4 weeks off a year and not abuse the system.

I believe that a bulk majority of the people out there are not people who would abuse a system like this. I also believe that the people who take less vacation time are not being forced to by the company or by corporate America. Lets face facts here, some people love their jobs or are dedicated to their work. There is nothing wrong with that at all.

I know if I was given the opportunity, I would take right about the same amount of time off that I have taken in the past. Right now, I am forced to take a month off a year. I say forced because now it is September and I have 10 days to still take and that doesn't include the 3 days I already have on the schedule.
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My domain - Nightfall.net

I have a situation similar to MPScan. I'm a Sys Admin in a heavily change controlled environment. Outside of responding to the rare incident, most of my work is planned in advance. As long as I get my stuff done and camp my e-mails, I can work from any location at any time. My boss still has a bit of that old-fashioned to him so he still believes in people defaulting in showing up to the office.

I have four weeks of vacation, work from home approximately a day week on average and I take sick leave whenever I'm sick, without having to account for days or whatever.

Burnout time, the time you would "call in sick" because you're sick of work, is what "work from home" is for. That's where I keep my laptop up to watch e-mails, complete the tasks required, and play League of Legends.
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A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. -MLK

In europe every employee gets 20 days a year after one day of labor at a minimum. In Scandinavia 6-8 weeks vacation is not uncommon. Somehow they manage....

Pretty sure a minimum of 4 weeks paid vacation is the norm pretty much the world over. Exceptions being the US, Canada, and Japan.

Canada is 10 days paid, plus paid public holidays (of which there are 5 national, and 1-7 provincial)
Japan begins at 10 days (after 6 months), but rises as the employee stays year by year- after 6 and a half years they also get 20 days as a minimum {but very few workers use them all - taken only 7 is common...} and has no paid statutory holidays

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In europe every employee gets 20 days a year after one day of labor at a minimum

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My time is essentially unlimited. I get paid either way, salary. I had years where I took 2 months off throughout the year paid, but realistically, I'm always on a half dozen projects and to take a very long vacation I would need to reschedule many people and move around deadlines and so on...

Basically it sounds good but practically to take more then 2 weeks in a row is nearly impossible. Even anything more then a week is PITA.

You fall into a cycle. All the PMs and engineers will take a bunch of time off in July, and in late December. So it is easier for everyone to take time off around there. I also burn a week in late March for skiing and college basketball.

Basically even though my PTO is limitless, I end up taking 3-5 weeks that are actual vacation. I take a day here and there if there is no meetings and work load is low.

I know a lot of companies do this. With my buddy at Citi, you lose your PTO at the end of the year and they have so many people that dont use it up, their HR forces you to take a vacation, fearing burning out.
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This is not the greatest post in the world, no, this is just a tribute!

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Well I get 25 vacation days per year (paid), 8 sick days (paid), 6 Fridays off (paid), public holidays (Paid) and 2 floating holidays (paid)

I might as well have unlimited time off.

Personally I wouldn't take any time off but they stopped paying it out so use or lose so I find a way to take it, I once took a month off after that they said no more than 2 weeks at a time. (I wish they'd go back to paying it out at the end of the year then I wouldn't use my vacation time any more.)
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semper idem
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Officially I have 4 weeks vacation, 1 week sick, and a couple of days of childcare. In reality I can pretty much do what I want as long as my job is taken care of. In February I didn't take any days off. I worked every weekday and every weekend. In April I took a leisure class and left work a couple of hours early three times a week. I am on call pretty much all the time, but only get off hour emergencies a few times a year. If there is something like a hurricane going on I am pretty much going to be living at the office. I very rarely get sick and I don't have kids. I take a week off to visit my Mom once a year(not really a vacation). I take at least a one week vacation once a year. Then I take off random Fridays and Mondays through out the year. It probably works out better for the company, but I am satisfied with the arrangement. I also don't hate work or abuse the system.
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don't get 2 close 2 my fantasy

I "enjoy" unlimited time off. I like to say that my vacation days were taken away by my employer.

There were 11 of us in my department at a mid-sized, private company with around 600 employees. They moved everyone to a system where there was no PTO, and you could take time off whenever you needed to, for as many days as you wanted.

The problem is that we were already over-worked, and then they let 4 of us go. They told us to just prioritize our tasks and that they were aware that some things were going to have to be neglected, and to choose our workload based on how much money it would cost the company.

We are a customer service-based company, and now I have to decide how many customers will be angered if I decide to skip researching/fixing their particular issue in lieu of handling other issues that impact a greater number of customers. Sure, this makes sense, but we used to be able to work together as a team to take care of all issues in a relatively timely manner. Now, with 4 of us gone, there is not a chance in hell that we can ever hope to keep up. This compounds the overall problem, as we continue to fall further behind and cannot even complete the daily tasks that keep the business running, much less handling any emergencies that inevitably seem to crop up.

In under 2 years, the culture at this company has gone from a regionally recognized top place to work to something decidedly far from that. Nobody in my team wants to give any extra effort, and everyone leaves promptly after 8 hours have been spent. It is a hopeless feeling, and many of us are looking for work elsewhere.

Oh, about our unlimited time off. That's funny. They tell us we can take as much time off as we want, as long as we make sure the work gets done. They made that impossible for us. Now I feel guilty if I need to take some personal time off, and a vacation would be anything but relaxing.

There is also the flip side of this..... my wife's company just moved to a new vacation policy. She gets 3 weeks per year, (120 hours technically) but now must take it a full week at a time. The "Week" runs Sunday to Saturday, so to get an entire weekend off, she has to take 2 full weeks of vacation. They have blacked out December 18th to January 18th, as well as the entire week of every Federal holiday. To complicate it further, they require that all vacation for the next year be requested in writing by November 1, but they won't give the approval until February 1. Unused vacation is not payed out or rolled over.